


Hope, Shock, and Time

by somedaysomewhere16



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:28:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25130062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somedaysomewhere16/pseuds/somedaysomewhere16
Summary: April 30, 1998: The night before the Gringotts raid and unknowingly on the cusp of the Battle of Hogwarts, Ron Weasley muses about the last seven years since meeting Hermione Granger and finally decides to do something about his long-held crush on her.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Hope, Shock, and Time

Ron couldn’t sleep.

He knew he needed it more than ever, knew that in just a few short hours he would have to be awake, alert, ready for the challenges that were sure to face them at Gringotts and whatever was to follow. If he had learned anything from the past seven years, it was that nothing went to plan. Ever. He had long since stopped being shocked when a monster or mutant animal or demonic wizard got in there way. Who knew where they’d end up tomorrow night? 

Truth be told he hadn’t slept well at all in nearly a year, not since the night before Bill and Fleur’s wedding he decided. At Shell Cottage Ron and Harry took turns with Dean Thomas sleeping in the lumpy arm chairs or the sofa which, frankly, were no more comfortable than the floor. The months they had spent with Hermione traveling through various forests were fraught with anxiety--for his family, for the entire wizarding world, for his friends, for himself. His worries kept him tossing and turning on the rickety bunk bed on the nights he wasn’t on watch. In the time he was gone from them, his mind was plagued with concern and disgust for himself at leaving that his sleep was overwhelming with nightmares. He had found it was better to stay awake rather than attempt to fight them. When they had first started this journey and camped out at Grimmauld Place, he had to find rest in short bursts throughout the day because he stayed up often until the early hours of the morning with Hermione.

Hermione.

Ron missed those days, back when he was still filled with hope and was committed to the mission. He missed the nights, how Hermione would make them steaming cups of tea though it was scorching hot outside for them to enjoy while they sat at opposite ends of an old upholstered sofa in the living room. Some nights their chats remained lighthearted, usually recalling fond memories at Hogwarts, but most nights the conversation fell to a discussion of their unsettling worries about what was to come. It would only be when they agreed to retire to bed that they’d realize how they had scooted closer and closer together over the course of the talk and Ron would drift to his restless sleep with the memory of Hermione pressed close to him. If he had a Time-Turner, he’d give it as many turns as he could to go back to those nights.

He sighed and rolled over in his sleeping bag so that he was now facing Harry, who had long given up attempting to sleep in one of the hard-backed armchairs and taken to the floor with him. Ron wondered: What was it like to be him? This was a thought that had kept him up frequently not just on this trip but since they had become friends first year. What was it like to know that, no matter how much help he had, in the end the fate of the wizarding world rested solely with him--their only hope? It was a responsibility Harry had never asked for, one forced upon him as a baby and only recently revealed to him. Ron had always had a choice in choosing to fight--for that he was grateful--but Harry never did. 

Stop thinking too much into it, Ron told himself. Go to sleep. 

But the thought was useless--he was wide awake and convinced sleep would never come. He rolled onto his back so he was staring at the ceiling, watching the fading shadows float in and out from the windows.

Ron’s shadow-watching was interrupted by the sound of soft footsteps on the staircase in the corner of the sitting room. There was a pause and Ron had the distinct feeling of being watched, but he stayed still. After months of sharing the same tent he knew whose footsteps those belong to. Still, it wasn’t until the footsteps had resumed and he heard the kitchen door click open that he shimmed out of his sleeping bag. Being careful not to wake up Harry, he reached for Scabbers--er--Peter Pettigrew’s wand.

“Lumos,” he whispered as he tiptoed into the kitchen. The cottage’s back door had swung shut but he could make out Hermione’s figure through the glass panes.

He caught a glimpse of the all-too familiar bushy brown hair bobbing down the hill toward the ocean and he followed her down. She had been so diligent since their fourth year to apply Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion, he recalled, but it wasn’t something she had thought to pack in her tiny handbag among the various other potions, spellbooks, and the tent. Ron understood why--the need for space even with an Extension Charm--yet he hadn’t minded. Bushy-Haired Hermione was the one he fondly remember from easier, more carefree times--back when he knew he could count on the safety of Hogwarts, when it didn’t seem like the world was imploding on itself. This was the Hermione he remembered laughing on the streets of Hogsmeade with or sitting side-by-side in their favorite spot in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room. This was the Hermione he first remembered falling in love with.

Ron paused on top of the hill leading to the water to watch Hermione sink into the sand below. She pulled her knees up under her chin and let her head rest there. Ron could barely make out her shoulders rising and falling into a sigh and he let out one in tandem. She was beautiful, with or without the potion, but that was simply one wonderful thing about her.

He couldn’t pinpoint when he knew it was love he felt and not merely a crush, but he could remember smaller moments, ones that cemented in his brain as milestones, monuments of a relationship not yet in existence….

Ron remembered the small girl that had appeared in the doorway of his compartment on his first trip on the Hogwarts Express. He marveled at how a muggle-born could know so much about a world they didn’t know existed until a month prior. Though Ron’d never admit it, he was fascinated and awed at how smart she was and confident in her abilities in a way he’d never felt about himself.

In their second year, Ron grew terrified when he found out she was petrified and in the hospital wing. How he and Harry would ever manage without her, he had thought on the way back from visiting her, he had no clue. And if Hogwarts were to close, as the rumors suggested, how could he bare never seeing her again? It was then that he knew he had developed a crush, but it was a flighty feeling he brushed off and forbade himself from thinking of again. Girls? No. Quidditch was more important.

It was not until fourth year when Ron allowed himself to think it again when the Yule Bal arrived. The mistake not to ask her to the dance plagued him for the remainder of the year but when summer came and he found himself living right down the hall from her at Grimmauld Place he made amends for the time he wasted. Their nighttime conversations in his empty bedroom became his favorite pastime. A few years later, when they once again found themselves living in the Black family home, a strange feeling of déjà vu would pass over him each night, reminding him of that summer.

After a day spent cleaning up the vestiges of dark magic and artifacts, Ron and Hermione would find themselves sitting on his bed facing each other, knees just barely touching, heads leaning closer and closer together as they talked. Ron never quite understood Hermione’s issue with house elves but he adored the passion in her voice as she discussed the subject. He loved hearing her talk about anything, really--her muggle friends from childhood, the latest news in the Daily Prophet, and even her silent friendship with Madam Pince, the Hogwarts librarian. He learned over those weeks that she was the one person he felt most comfortable talking too--even above Harry, Ginny, and his brothers. She alone had the ability to make him feel understood, recognized, and important. Ron would be be lying if he said he wasn’t a bit disappointed when Harry arrived and their late night talks came to an end.

Somewhere between then and now, nearly three years later, he had fallen in love. There were fights, times of silence, times of separation, other relationships, deaths, and a war, yet she still gave him the same feeling she had that summer. When Ron thought of these past three years he wanted to make a conscious effort to remember the better moments--the times she took his hand when Apparating, the day of his first Quidditch match when she kissed him on the cheek, the nights they patrolled the castle together on Prefect duties, or the last month at Shell Cottage when they could escape meetings with Harry and Griphook for walks and talks along the shore. There had been so much uncertainty these last few years, let alone the past year, but Hermione had been a constant, one he worried could easily be gone in a second.

There had been no question in his mind about joining Harry on the hunt for Horcruxes. As far as he was concerned his safety had always been in danger just by virtue of their friendship but that did not stop him from fretting about Hermione. Harry may have been Undesirable No. 1, but Hermione, as his muggle-born accomplice, may as well have been number two.

Ron shuddered at the thought as well as the chill wafting along the beach. Below, Hermione pulled her legs in tighter and readjusted her jumper. It was fraying at the elbows and on the shoulders and the zipper had finally snapped a few Apparitions ago. He made a mental note to loan her one of his maroon Christmas sweaters when they finally made it back to the Burrow… whenever that would be.

Finally leaving his thoughts, Ron stepped down closer to Hermione, his heavy boot prints covering and replacing her smaller trainer prints in the sand. Just like the moon above them was to the water below, Hermione was Ron’s magnet pull.

Once close enough, Ron gently laid a hand on her shoulder, not wanting to scare her. The act was futile as Hermione jumped up, brandishing Bellatrix’s wand and pointing it in his face.

“I-I’m sorry, Ron,” she said once she realized who was standing in front of her and pocketed the wand. “Ever since Malfoy Manor--”

“You don’t have to say anything more,” said Ron with a grim smile. He fell onto the sand and Hermione sat next to him. “I-I understand.”

Hermione nodded and pulled her jumper closer to her. She couldn’t find any words that would make sense in the moment (probably because she expected to be alone out here) and so they sat in the comfortable, still silence of the night. The few noises they heard--the lapping of waves against the shore and a curious owl above them--filled the space between and around them.

Ron cleared his throat and Hermione straightened, looking at him as if anticipating him to say something, but Ron clamped his mouth shut again. A few moments passed, a few more hoots came from the owl, a few more waves crashed.

“I’m scared.” Ron shocked himself with the statement. His eyes darted around the beach, as if he expected the words had come from someone else. 

Ron shocked himself as he cleared his throat and said, “I’m scared.” He wasn’t quite sure why he had said it once he did. They were all scared, true. But no one said it out loud. It was an obvious fact that bore no need for conversation. That they were Gryffindors no longer mattered.

Hermione looked at him, tears brimming in her eyes. There were stains down her cheeks, too, and Ron could tell that her crying hadn’t started just a few moments ago. She opened her mouth to reply and bit her lip to keep herself from saying anything. Instead, she buried her face into his sweater and let out a few dry sobs. Ron reached to pat her head gently and Hermione straightened herself up again, attempting to put on a brave face.

“It’ll be over soon,” said Hermione. “We’ll get the cup tomorrow and then--”

“‘Mione you know as well as I do that isn’t a guarantee,” Ron splayed his hands in the sand and let the granules fall through his fingers. “Hardly anything ever goes right for us, doesn’t it? Don’t you think we’re running out of time?”

Hermione considered this statement. If all went well, tomorrow they’d have destroyed the Horcrux by tomorrow afternoon. If all went to hell they’d have neither the cup nor the sword and, at the rate they were going, the three of them would probably find themselves in another no-escape-found predicament. The medium ground found them with the Goblet but not the Sword, if Griphook’s sure spinning of his words meant anything. And where would that leave the trio? Wandering through the forest again, hoping for the sword to reappear? Whether they had the sword or not Harry was bent on returning to Hogwarts and whether they wound up there soon or in a month, it felt like a sure death trap.

“It will all work out,” Hermione insisted. “It has to.”

Ron shook his head. “You don’t know that, Hermione. We keep getting hurt and running into dead ends and getting ourselves in trouble. I’m tired of it all. Don’t you think tomorrow could be another lost cause? If it doesn’t work out--”

“Don’t talk like that,” said Hermione sharply.

“I have to! You know it’s a possibility. We can’t ignore that.” Ron stunned himself, when had he become the sensible one? Though tomorrow showed an inkling of hope, there had been too many days of apprehension that kept Ron from truly believing the end was near.

Then, from the deep recesses of his memory came a line from Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches: “Apologize when you know you’re wrong.”

“Hermione, I’m tired of fighting,” he began. “I-”

“You-Know-Who is still out there,” said Hermione, sounding exasperated. “We still have three Horcruxes to find. Harry needs us. We can’t give up now just because you feel like it.”

“I wasn’t talking about You-Know-Who.” Ron lowered his head and stared down at the sand. “Gosh, ‘Mione, you’re making it really hard to apologize.”

“Oh,” Hermione said quietly, going pink in the face. “I didn’t realize.” And then, “For what?”

“For fighting with you all the time.” Ron met her eyes, brown and still swimming in tears. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to do it. I try to say something else and it just comes out like fighting.”

The tears in Hermione’s eyes fell faster now. “I should be apologizing too,” she gulped for air and steadied herself. “For the same.”

Ron offered a generous, understanding, appreciative smile. Then, he scooted closer to his Bushy-Haired Hermione and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Hermione followed suit, letting her head nestle into the crook of his neck. This was familiar comfortable, second nature at this point. Despite his inability to tell her how he felt, Ron had mastered the art of comforting her and giving her a safe place to simply be and feel all that she felt. Somehow the warmth of her body, her closeness to him, had the same affect. The struggles of their world stopped mattering, felt so far away, when they were intertwined like this.

So why then, if this was so easy, could he not tell her how he felt? 

Ron delved back into his thoughts, this time to a memory back at the Burrow, just after the night of the Seven Potters but before Bill and Fleur’s wedding....

All was still care free and he had spent the night after dinner in an improvised game of Quidditch with Fred, George, Harry, Hermione, and Ginny. One by one they headed off to bed until he and Fred were left loading the brooms back into their shed.

“So, Ronnie, are you going to tell me what ‘top secret’ mission for our dearly departed Dumbledore you’re going on?” Fred had asked, adding air quotes where applicable. He had shut the wooden shed door with a loud thud that made Ron jump back a few feet.

“I’ve already told you I can’t.” Ron had stalked off in the direction of the Burrow but stopped when he had realized Fred wasn’t following him.

Ron turned around and found Fred sunk to the ground. “I didn’t meant to make you upset, mate.” He had gestured to the patch of grass next to him and Ron obliged, taking a seat next to him. “I worry about you, Ron. We all do. George has gone and lost an ear. Percy’s with the ministry. Bill and Charlie are working ‘round the clock for the Order…. I don’t want to see another brother hurt by this war.”

“Too late for that,” Ron had mumbled.

“Make sure Harry comes back alive. Mum would never forgive you if you let something happen to him,” Fred had said. He chuckled and Ron joined, but the laughter fell flat as they realized how true Molly Weasley’s wrath could and would be.

“Of course,” Ron had said. “Hermione, too.”

Fred had raised his eyebrows at the mention of Hermione, but Ron hadn’t noticed. He was playing with the blades of grass beneath him like a small child. He didn’t meet his brother’s eyes as he said, “I really like her, Fred.”

Ron had let out a sigh of relief upon saying the words he had never said out loud before--not to any of his other siblings and most certainly not to Harry (who most definitely knew, anyway, without having to be told). It wasn’t until this moment that he’d mustered up the courage to verbalize how he felt to anyone. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d given Fred the honors. Nevertheless here they were.

Ron had slowly lifted his head to face Fred’s. He sported a wide-mouth grin. Clearly, this declaration wasn’t a shock. Fred reached out and shook Ron’s shoulders with a force not unlike that of a Hippogriff’s talons meeting pavement. “FINALLY! It’s about time! George owes me 19 galleons.”

“Oi!” Ron shouted, ignoring the fact that his brothers had bet on his love life. He hoped there weren’t other things in his life they had bet on, too. “Keep it down, will you?”

“Ickle Ronniekins admitted he’s in love,” Fred teased, though in a whisper.

“I didn’t say that,” mumbled Ron, though his cheeks blushed.

“So, when do you plan on telling her? Will you sneak away for a dance at the wedding? Or maybe you have a romantic night planned the first night of this quest?” Fred had now wiggled his eyebrows in a more suggestive fashion that previously.

“None of that,” said Ron.

“We can’t just hang onto this precious information and wait another seven years for you to get the courage to say something to her.” Fred clucked his tongue. “Hermione is a lady, a catch if you will. A witch in her prime who does not deserve to sit around waiting to be wooed.”

Ron had nodded. He knew all that and more. For as much as he was confident he liked Hermione, he still was not positive that she reciprocated the feeling in the same way. He returned back to playing with the blades of grass near his ankles.

“You’ll have to tell her while you’re out gallivanting on this quest, of course,” Fred had insisted when Ron said nothing more. He said it matter-of-factly, as if it were a textbook fact and not merely a nice idea.

“I do?” asked Ron.

“Blimey, Ron. The two of you alone in a tent together for Merlin knows how long? It’ll be a wonder if you don’t do more than just confess your undying love for each other.”

This made Ron blush again. He pondered the rest of the statement for a moment. “Harry will be there too. We won’t be alone.”

Fred had blown this off with a wave of his wand in the air. “Harry Potter? He’s all over Ginny. Surely you know that by now.”

Ron had given another nod. “So I have to tell her, don’t I?”

Fred clasped Ron on the shoulder with a strong, tough hand. Ron had hardly noticed how he had matured over the past two years since leaving Hogwarts. “Indeed, Ron. And all of us Weasley’s will be waiting on baited breath until you do.”....

And here he was now. It seemed they were nowhere closer to the end of the quest, what with the snake still alive and no one had any clue what artifact of Ravenclaw Voldemort could have obsessed over. This was not to mention the Hallows that Harry wanted to find, too. They were nine months into this quest, still finding dead ends, and Ron had not come clean to Hermione--his own personal quest.

Now was as good as time as ever.

Ron opened his mouth to speak, but Hermione clearly had no clue what Ron had planned. She untangled herself from Ron’s arms, stood up, and shook off the sand from her pajama bottoms and the palms of her hands. “We really shouldn’t be out here too long. Tomorrow is-”

“Wait,” interrupted Ron. “I have something else to say…” he balked, and added “about tomorrow.”

Hermione sighed and bit her tongue, struggling to avoid starting a fight mere minutes after admitting she had a habit of that and apologizing for it. “Well, go ahead,” she prompted.

Ron swallowed, hesitating. Maybe he shouldn’t say anything at all. Maybe their relationship was best left at a friendship, he reasoned. In a few years Hermione would be off saving every house-elf in the United Kingdom and he would be doing whatever it was he decided to do and that would be that. He would put his wishy-washy feelings aside and move on, rendering this moment, this declaration, useless.

The only trouble was he wanted to be right there alongside her, in everything she did, for whomever and whatever she planned.

“It’d be easier to say if you were sitting next to me,” said Ron finally.

Hermione gave in, though with another sigh. She folded her legs underneath her and sat directly across from Ron. Déjà vu once more fell over him. Suddenly, he was fifteen again.

“Hermione, I-” He struggled with his words again. “I really… What I’m trying to say is-”

This is ridiculous, he said to himself. And, for the second time that night, Ron shocked himself. This time, it wasn’t with words.

He leaned forward, bridging the gap between them. Ron’s blue eyes met Hermione’s brown ones and he swore that he could count her every eyelash if given the time. He brought his lips down to hers and they crashed into each other as the world crashed around them in the best way possible. There was the sound of waves and the owls again but they felt a world away. Ron and Hermione were somewhere else entirely, in their own bubble, on their own island, hidden away from the world’s problems and the anxieties of tomorrow. For now there was just them and the assurance that the other was there, right there, pressed against each other in one perfect, solitary moment.

Remember this, Ron told himself seconds before they parted. He had no way of knowing, but Hermione was thinking the same thing. Neither of them had ever felt this way with anyone, ever.

When they pulled apart, breathing in the heavy, salted air, Ron stayed close, resting his forehead on hers. If given the time, she could probably count his freckles. The world resettled itself over the shock and fell back into place. At some point, Hermione had found his hands and he gave them a squeeze. When her eyes met Ron’s there were no longer tears, but a sense of joy, of hope, floating along through them.

“I need to know that when all this is over, I’m still going to have you.” Ron had never been more confident, more sure of his words before this moment. “I can’t, I won’t lose you, ‘Mione. Not to a war. Not ever. I like you, Hermione.” He paused to catch his breath, not realizing he’d strung each phrase together, one right after the other. “That’s--that’s what I wanted to say.”  
Hermione gave his hands a squeeze but she peeled her forehead away from his, slowly. “You won’t lose me, Ron. I’m not going anywhere.”

Ron breathed a sigh of relief. Hermione--his Bushy-Haired Hermione, the small girl in his compartment on the Hogwarts Express, the petrified girl in the hospital wing, his late-night-can’t-sleep-let’s-talk-over-tea partner was right here, holding his hand. He had kissed her. He had told her he liked her. He couldn’t wait to tell Fred he hadn’t chickened out.

“But-”

Ron’s heart fell into his stomach. He let go of Hermione’s hands, preparing for the worst.

He had to stop her from saying whatever came next. Everything was perfect. It was the shock of the moment, he thought to himself. She didn’t mean to protest, it was just a reflex. “Hermione--”

She put a finger to his lips, the ones that were just pressed on hers, making him stop. “I’m not fighting you, Ron. Neither of us can think about a relationship, not now, you know that. Not during this war. But when it’s over…”

Hermione shook her head and ringlets of brown hair fell into her face. She reached to push it away but Ron was quicker.

“What I’m trying to say is,” she laughed, an absurd thing to do in the moment, copying Ron’s earlier words. “When it’s over, and there’s nothing getting in our way, I’m all yours.”

It took Ron a few moments to let her words seep into him, to understand that Hermione wasn’t saying “not ever” just “not now.”

“I mean it,” said Hermione when Ron didn’t immediately reply. “All yours.”  
Ron felt simultaneously like the wind had been knocked out of him and that he was floating on air. There was hope now that hadn’t been there moments before. “Well, we better get this Horcrux hunt back on and fast, give Voldemort a nasty shock when Harry catches him, and end this war once and for all.”

Hermione stood again and reached for Ron’s hands to pull her up straight against him. She wrapped her arms around his torso, enveloping him in a hug and letting her head rest against his chest. They swayed a bit in the breeze. He wanted to cork up this memory and keep it forever.

“I guess we’d better head off to sleep,” said Hermione, pulling apart from the embrace. “Big day tomorrow, you know?”

Ron gave a grim smile. “It will all work out,” he echoed her words with his newfound confidence. “It has to.”

They marched up the hill hand in hand, letting the waves and owls be their background noise once more. Ron’s hand grasped the kitchen’s doorknob and he pulled it toward them, ready to usher Hermione inside.

“Wait,” she started. Ron closed the cottage door.

She stood on her tiptoes, her hands brushing against his shoulders, and closed the gap between them so that they were entwined once more, no space between them. They drew back from the other and Ron grinned wildly at her.

“You’re a real Gryffindor, Ronald Weasley.” Her words were light, clear, and careful. “I hope you never forget that.”

There was truly nothing Ron could do in response but lean down to kiss her again. 

Hermione reached for the doorknob this time and they filed into the cottage in silence. Everything was as they had left it--Dean on the sofa and Harry among a heap of blankets on the floor. 

“Good night,” Hermione mouthed as she moved toward the staircase to the rooms above.  
Ron watched as she ascended, eyeing his Bushy-Haired Hermione and her frayed jumper. Before she reached the landing he whispered up to her, “All yours?”

Ron’s whisper was so silent he’d convinced himself in the half-second it took her to turn around that she hadn’t heard it at all, that everything that had just transpired hadn’t taken place at all.

“All yours,” she whispered back after a time, then turned and disappeared.

Ron fell asleep easily after that, dreaming of the new hope he had that tomorrow would work out. It had to. It could. It would. 

In his dreams, that hope looked like Hermione. He wasn’t shocked at all.


End file.
